


the evidence for your magic (and the case for us)

by jessequicksters



Series: dim sum drabbles [19]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Justice League - All Media Types, Justice League Dark (2017), Justice League Dark (Comics)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Childhood Friends, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24438931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessequicksters/pseuds/jessequicksters
Summary: (for the prompt: greek goddess, touch-not-touching)Zatanna Zatara was a memory almost as old as Bruce himself. Few things from his childhood were worth remembering. Zatanna was one of them. Not that she was a difficult woman to remember.(In which Zatanna gets possessed by Hecate, Bruce tries to spellcast it away, and realizes a few things along the way.)
Relationships: Bruce Wayne & Zatanna Zatara, Bruce Wayne/Zatanna Zatara
Series: dim sum drabbles [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1732507
Kudos: 14
Collections: dim sum drabbles





	the evidence for your magic (and the case for us)

**Author's Note:**

> join my campaign for more bruce/zatanna content

The old gods were not to be toyed with. Bruce understood that much. Most people assumed that that Bruce didn’t believe in certain things.

Magic. Witchcraft. The realm of the unseen.

But it was never about what was could be detected by the senses, there were always limits to that. Hecate roamed the Earth now. You wouldn’t notice it unless you had the ability to notice a shift in the moon, the sharp siren screaming, the extra layer of darkness that bled into the night. But she was there, and once you knew, you couldn't shake it off.

Bruce’s beliefs were rooted in evidence. Reason was difficult to come by in matters of the occult, but proof—proof was memory.

That something had been touched. That it had made its mark on a living being. 

Zatanna Zatara was a memory almost as old as Bruce himself. Few things from his childhood were worth remembering. Zatanna was one of them.

Not that she was a difficult woman to remember.

At the age of nine, as a rabbit appeared out of a top hat: _It’s a pocket, so you manifest whatever you want to come out of it. Bunnies are demure, flexible little things; it’s easier for the mind to pull out something it can imagine between the pinch of two fingers, than say, a grand piano._

At sixteen, as the skies broke open with pouring rain overnight: _I’m sorry, Bruce. I didn’t mean to flood your garden. My dad tells me that heartbreak is different for us homo magi, but I didn’t think it would rip through me like a storm. Thanks for letting me come by. I’m too embarrassed to be crying about a boy around my dad._

At the age of nineteen, after Giovanni Zatara’s funeral, as Bruce convinced both of them that from then on, they had control over the rest of their lives: _Srewolf worg morf eht dnuorg._

Blue orchids sprouted from the grass. Afterwards, Bruce took them home for Alfred to display in a vase next to his bed.

There were other moments in between, of losing and remembering each other, uncovering new parts of themselves that weren’t there before.

The years immediately following Bruce’s return from the League of Shadows was a period of silence. Bound by a ring of secrets and misplaced loyalties, it was a spiral of lost time. He wasn’t the same person anymore. Hardened and chipped away of trust, Bruce Wayne was angry, and maybe even on the verge of turning vicious.

But when Zatanna ran into a man wearing a cape and bat ears on a rooftop in Gotham one night, she paused for a moment. She took a step forward and examined him the way he used to examine her whenever she performed a trick; they were curious people, who could never let an answer to a question run away from them.

“Bruce?” she asked. “Is that you?”

A memory. A moment. And proof that magic still existed.

So even though Bruce wasn’t any closer to finding the root of reason within magic—such as why Hecate was trying to possess Zatanna, in this instance—there was proof that it was happening, fast.

Zatanna’s skin turned paler than it already was, veins mutating into sickly shades of green and black. Two goddesses were wrestling inside the body of this woman. Bruce laid candles on the floor, arranged according to the sorcery books Zatanna had given him.

He shouldn’t be doing this himself. He knew that. Hell, Constantine would most likely burst in at any moment now, but Bruce was never one to wait around for anyone to save the day. If he had the means to do something, then he would do it, or die trying.

Bruce laid a hand on Zatanna’s head, “Sorry, Zee. Should’ve really taken you up on those spellcasting lessons back in the day.”

He took off his mask. It didn’t feel right to keep it on for this next part. He reminded himself that fear was a necessary part of change, and that for better or for worse, the two of them would be changed people by the end of the night.

As Bruce stood back up, something brushed against his wrist; in that moment, there was a flood of magic running through him, as both his hands glowed with bright, white light. Zatanna’s hand fell back down, fingers splayed open with fading white tips.

He let out a soft chuckle. The two of them had always relished in the theatrics of it all.

He’d been searching for proof that Zatanna was still in there somewhere. She always loved turning the tables back on him.

 _That something had been touched. That it had made its mark on a living being. That it had taken root deep. That it had been growing all this time_.

**Author's Note:**

> [(Follow my Zatanna playlist!)](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5cNYWo8PvAx4H0oMi62Li4?si=KLqyQNXMSCmJdkIKpuv15A)
> 
> written as part of a quarantine fic challenge with [illea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/illea)


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